AGI conference 2013 (#Geocom) presentation all about the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenheads migration to a hybrid Open-Source stack.

1. Going ‘hybrid’ open
Simon Miles
Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead

2. 1 of 17
The Proposal?
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Current GIS stack
Proposed GIS stack
Savings
Architecture
Timescales
Some other stuff!

3. 2 of 17
The recommendation
#FROM:
54 ArcView (single) licenses
5 ArcEditor (Concurrent) licenses
1 ArcGIS Server
1 SDE instance
1 ArcInfo
#TO:
QGIS
Postgres/PostGIS instance
iShareGIS
Map-Modeller
# Saving around £15k in Yr one

4. 3 of 17
Why move?
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Demand
# Scalability
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Cost savings
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Technology
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I wanted GIS on every desktop!

5. 4 of 17
Desktop GIS!
Benchmarks
QGIS: CAN
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Edit shp, PostGIS
Query features
Print map
View WMS etc
Open shp, tab, kml etc
Smaller hardware footprint
Can be virtualised
No license costs associated with scaling up!

6. 5 of 17
Database GIS!
PostGIS: CAN
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Do everything SDE did
No Oracle license
Deploy multiple instances

7. 6 of 17
Web GIS!
Astun: CAN
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Out of the box solution
Talks to PostGIS
Smaller server footprint
Cheaper than ArcGIS Server!

8. 7 of 17
Map-Modeller!
# The divorce settlement!
# Like for Like replacement from ArcInfo
# Talks to PostGIS!

9. 8 of 17
The Users
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Enthusiastic for
change
One main question;
“will it be faster than what we have?”

10. 9 of 17
Management
# Happy with solutions
# Happy with costs
# Get on with it!

11. 10 of 17
The plan?
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Replace
ArcMap with QGIS,
over six months,
dept. by dept.
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# ArcSDE with PostGIS,
using Astun Tech’s Studio
# ArcGIS Server with iShareGIS,
over a week,
to all ArcGIS Server users!
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Train staff
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No holidays!

12. 11 of 17
Phase 1 – Pre User Implementation
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Get PostGIS onto a Server
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Redesign schemas and tables
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Migrate data from ArcSDE to PostGIS
Planning Policy guinea pigs
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Middle of the road
Had lots of data
Wanted change
– Ratio 1:6
Had the time to help!

13. 12 of 17
Phase 2 – User Implementation
# Migrate ArcGIS Server users to iShareGIS
# Move staff to QGIS dept. by dept.
# Arrange training
# Keep users informed

14. 13 of 17
How?
# Studio behind the scenes did the grunt work!
SDE data

15. 13b of 17
How?
Dept A
Dept B
Dept C
SHP

16. 14 of 17
The Architecture

17. 15 of 17
Feedback
Q. How do you find
using iShareGIS?
91%
9%
Hard
Q. Given a choice of using
ArcView or QGIS
Which would you choose?
Easy
27%
ArcView
73%
QGIS

18. 16 of 17
Shortcomings / Lessons Learned
# Notes – very important things
# Lots of learning!
# Not totally ESRI free
# Database design
# Community help

19. 17 of 17
Me?
Simon Miles
# Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead
# GIS developer
# Likes - beer, ancient
bronze casting & tech
# @geosmiles
# simon.miles@rbwm.gov.uk